Does The Social Contract Support Democracy?
1. First name : Joo gang / last name : Lee
2. Affiliation : Kookmin University, Korea
3. address : Uchang Apt. 5-702, Ogeum-dong, Songpa-gu, Seoul, Korea (138-
739)
4. email address :
[email protected]
5. telephone number : +82-10-9281-0241
Abstract: It has been widely known that Rousseau advocates direct
democracy in The Social Contract. This essay, by contrast, offers a new
perspective focusing only on the original text of The Social Contract and
firmly maintaining the definition of democracy and republic suggested by
the book. He asserts that the executive power should be separated from the
legislative power. And he claims that in democracy the executive power is
united with the legislative power, which makes democracy deficient. He even
argues that aristocracy has the advantage of distinguishing between the
executive power and the legislative power. Finally, Rousseau supports any
constitutional form of the executive if the legislative is governed by the
general will, which is called a 'republic.' The concept of republic is
concerned with the legislative, while the concept of democracy is concerned
with the executive. Republic is the state where the legislative is governed
by the general will, while democracy is the form of the executive where
magistrates are more than half the whole population. Aristocracy is
different from democracy only in that the latter has more magistrates than
the former. Aristocracy and democracy are forms of the executive, not those
of the legislative. Although it is true that Rousseau suggests the
theoretical form of democracy, it is not right that The Social Contract
supports democracy. The truth is that Rousseau supports a republic
regardless of the constitutional form of the executive in The Social
Contract.
.
1. Introduction
It has been widely known that Rousseau advocates direct democracy in The
Social Contract. For instance, Andrew Heywood explains Rousseau's political
theory by saying, "Rousseau's political teachings, summarized in Émile
(1762) and developed in The Social Contract ([1762]1913), advocates a
radical form of democracy that has influenced liberal, socialist, anarchist
and, some would argue, fascist thought."[1]
Without a doubt, the author of The Social Contract shows his private
preference to democracy by saying, "There are two common ways by which a
government degenerates – when it itself contracts and when the state
dissolves. The government contracts when its members pass from greater to a
smaller number, that is, from democracy to aristocracy, or aristocracy to
royal government."( , 10, 131).[2] If we pay attention only to this
passage, democracy seems the least degenerate government and the most
favorable one to Rousseau. And as Frank Cunningham puts it, "Almost without
exception participatory-democratic theorists have appealed to the works of
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and in particular his The Social Contract (published
in 1762) for support."
We do not deny the fact that the influence of The Social Contract has been
huge to the participatory-democratic theorists. However, we will prove that
The Social Contract itself does not support democracy, which is the first
aim of this study.
At the same time, we will examine Robert Dahl's saying, "The plain fact is
that the words democracy and republic did not (despite Madison) designate
difference in types of popular government. What they reflected, at the cost
of later confusion, was a difference between Greek and Latin, the languages
from which they came."[3]
As mentioned above, Dahl argues that democracy and republic actually have
the same meaning. However, we will prove that Dahl's argument is not the
case with The Social contract because Rousseau conceptually distinguishes
democracy from republic with rigidity, which constitutes the second aim of
this study.
And only is the original text of The Social Contract to be analyzed to
achieve the two aims in this study. It will thus not be our concern that
Rousseau advocated democracy in his other writings. Since our argument
could lose its way and be ruined if we rely on the secondary studies or
other writings of Rousseau's, we will only focus on the original text of
The Social Contract. Now let us begin our research by examining the
relation between the executive power and the legislative power.
2. Rousseau asserts that the executive power should be separated from the
legislative power.
We will start by quoting The Social Contract. In Chapter 6 of Book of
The Social Contract. Rousseau distinguishes the legislative power from the
executive power.
When I say that the province of the law is always general, I mean that
the law considers all subjects collectively and all actions in the
abstract; it does not consider any individual man or any specific
action. Thus the law may well lay down that there shall be privileges,
but it may not nominate the persons who shall have those privileges; the
law may establish several classes of citizen, and even specify the
qualifications which shall give access to those several classes, but it
may not say that this man or that shall be admitted; the law may set up
a royal government and hereditary succession, but it may not elect a
king or choose a royal family – in a word, no function which deals with
the individual falls within the province of the legislative power. ( ,
6, 81-82)
According to Rousseau, the legislative body considers all subjects
collectively and all actions, and no function which deals with the
individual falls within the province of the legislative power. The
legislative sovereign body would exceed its authority if it deals with the
individual. It is the executive body that should deal with the individuals.
Rousseau deals with the issue further in Chapter 1 of Book of The Social
Contract.
The body politic has the same two motive powers – and we can make the
same distinction between will and strength, the former is legislative
power and the latter executive power. Nothing can be, or should be, done
in the body politics without the concurrence of both. We have seen that
the legislative power belongs, and only belong, to the people. On the
other hand, it is easy to see from principles established above [Book ,
Chapters 4 and 6] that executive power cannot belong to the generality
of the people as legislative or sovereign, since executive power is
exercised only in particular acts which are outside the province of law
and therefore outside the province of the sovereign which can act only
to make laws. ( , 1, 101-102)[4]
Rousseau claims that the legislative power belongs to the legislative
sovereign whereas the executive power belongs to the executive government.
The government is often unhappily confused with the sovereign, but it is
really only the agent as a means of communication between the state and
sovereign. ( , 1, 102) Of course, according to Rousseau, the state exists
in itself while the government exists only through the sovereign. And the
force of prince of the government is nothing other than the public force
concentrated in his hands. ( , 1, 105-106)
But at the same time, the government power is firmly separated from the
state power. As Rousseau puts it, "We see that even as a private will
cannot represent the general will, so too the general will changes its
nature if it seeks to deal with an individual case; it cannot as a general
will give a ruling concerning any one man or any one fact." ( , 4, 76-77)
"No function which deals with the individual falls within the province of
the legislative power. [……] It is also clear that since the law unites
universality of will with universality of the field of legislation,
anything that any man, no matter who, commands on his own authority is not
a law; even what the sovereign itself commands with respect to a particular
object is not a law but a decree, not an act of sovereignty but an act of
government." ( , 6, 81-82) "The legislative power belongs, and can only
belong, to the people. On the other hand, it is easy to see from principles
established above [Book , Chapters 4 and 6] that executive power cannot
belong to the generality of the people as legislative or sovereign." ( , 1,
101)
So it can be inferred that any constitutional form of government which
unites the legislative power with the executive power is unfavorable to
Rousseau. In those governments, there is a chance of the lawmaker using his
legislative power as the executive power for his own private interest,
which could corrupt the government and the body public in result. In more
detail will we discuss it in the subsequent chapter.
3. Rousseau claims that in democracy the executive power is united with the
legislative power, which makes democracy deficient.
In Chapter 3 of Book of The Social Contract, Rousseau proposes the
classification of governments as follows:
First, the sovereign may put the government in the hands of the whole
people or of the greater part of the people, so that there are more
citizen-magistrates than there are ordinary private citizens. This form
of government is known as democracy.
Alternatively, the sovereign may confine the government to the hands of
a few, so that there are more ordinary citizens than there are
magistrates: this form of government is called aristocracy.
Yet again, the sovereign may concentrate the entire government in the
hands of one single magistrate, from whom all the others will derive
their power. This third form of government is the most common, and is
called monarchy or royal government. ( , 3, 110)
According to Rousseau, democracy is a form of government that has more
citizen-magistrates than ordinary private citizens. That is to say,
democracy is a form of the executive body and has nothing to do with a form
of the legislative body.
Sovereign is nothing other than the legislative and "the sovereign, having
no other force than the legislative power, acts only through the laws, and
since the laws are nothing other than authentic acts of the general will,
the sovereign can act only when the people is assembled." ( , 12, 136)
Therefore, it is necessary that the people should gather in assembly and
participate in approving the proposed draft bills, but that has nothing to
do with democracy. According to Rousseau, lawmaking is the act which is
related to the legislative power, not to the executive power of democratic
government. Participation of all the people in lawmaking has nothing to do
with democracy.
For example, if the population of Korea is 50 million and citizen-
magistrates are 26 million, the constitutional form of Korea government is
democracy. It is about the ratio of citizen-magistrates to ordinary private
citizens, and has nothing to with the sovereignty or direct participation
in lawmaking.[5]
It is true that even though citizen-magistrates are more than half of the
population, the right to legislate or the sovereign power is still in the
hands of all the people. But that has nothing to do with democracy. We call
the body politic democracy not because more than half of the total
population participates in the legislative body, but because they work in
the executive body.
All the more, in true democracy, every person is both magistrate and
legislator so that the legislative power is united with the executive
power, which makes the democracy deficient, According to Rousseau.[6]
He who makes the law knows better than anyone how it should be executed
and interested. So it might seem that there could be no better
constitution than one which united the executive power with the
legislative; in fact, this very union makes that form of government
deficient in certain respects, for things which ought to be kept apart
are not, and the prince and the sovereign being the same person
constitute, so to speak, a government without government. It is not good
that he who makes the law should execute it or that the body of the
people should turn its attention away from general perspectives and give
it to particular objects.( , 4, 112)
It is not good, Rousseau says, that the lawmakers execute the laws made by
their own hands because they exceed their authority and infringe on the
executive's rights. Therefore, if Rousseau happens to meet the activists
who say that they are trying to fulfill the direct democracy of Rousseau
and that those villains from both the legislative and the executive should
be expelled and the people power should take control of both the
legislative power and the executive power, he would not be pleased for
God's sake. Because, in that situation, the legislative power and the
executive power will be united under the name of the people power, which is
the problem of democracy that Rousseau pointed out in The Social Contract.
Rousseau also explains the other demerits of democracy as follows:
How many things that are difficult to have at the same time does the
democratic form of government not presuppose? First, a very small state,
where the people may be readily assembled and where each citizen may
easily know all the others. Secondly, a great simplicity of manners and
morals, to prevent excessive business and thorny discussions.
Thirdly, a large measure of equality in social rank and fortune, without
which equality in rights and authority will not last long. [……] We may
add that there is no government so liable to civil war and internecine
strife as is democracy or popular government, for there is none which
has so powerful and constant a tendency to change to another form or
which demands so much vigilance and courage to maintain it unchanged.
( , 4, 113)
Rousseau finishes his pessimistic analysis on democracy by saying, "If
there were a nation of Gods, it would govern itself democratically. A
government so perfect is not suited to men."( , 4, 114) Succeeding this, he
lists the merits of aristocracy.
There are thus three types of aristocracy, natural, elective and
hereditary. The first is suited only to primitive peoples; the third is
the worst of all governments; the second is the best, and this is
aristocracy in the true sense of the word.
Aristocracy has not only the advantage of distinguishing between the
sovereign and the government, it has also the advantage of selecting its
magistrates. Under popular government all the citizens are born
magistrates, while this other system limits itself to a small number of
magistrates, every one of whom is elected, a method which makes honesty,
sagacity, experience and all the other grounds of popular preference and
esteem further guarantees of wise government.
Besides, assemblies can be more easily arranged, business can be better
discussed and be dispatched with more order and diligence; the credit of
the state is better upheld in the eyes of foreigners by venerable
senators than it is by an unknown and despised multitude.
In a word, it is the best and most natural arrangement for the wisest to
govern the multitude, if we are sure that they will govern it for its
advantage and not for their own. ( , 5, 114-115)
Any reader who happens to read The Social Contract for the first time with
no academic prejudice would think that Rousseau prefers aristocracy to
democracy in reality. We have to pay attention to Rousseau's argument that
aristocracy has the advantage of distinguishing between the sovereign and
the government. We should not miss the point that the demerit of democracy
mainly comes from union of the legislative power and the executive power.
Aristocracy to which Rousseau prefers is not hereditary but elective, and
the executive body of today resembles that of Rousseau's elective
aristocracy. Although scholars of direct democracy and those of
representative democracy keenly are opposed to each other, the theoretical
form of the executive body is essentially not very different from each
other.[7]
Mill and Rousseau even have the same opinion that people who join the
assembly to approve the proposed draft bills should not participate in the
process of making those draft bills. As Rousseau puts it, "The lawgiver is,
in every respect, an extraordinary not only because of his genius, but
equally because of his office, which is neither that of the government nor
that of the sovereign."( , 7, 85), and "When a law is proposed in the
people's assembly, what is asked of them is not precisely whether they
approve of the proposition or reject it, but whether it is in conformity
with the general will which is theirs." ( , 2, 153) "Thus the man who
frames the laws has not nor ought to have any legislative right." ( , 7,
86)
Like Mill who claims that "It is equally true, though only of late and
slowly beginning to be acknowledged, that a numerous assembly is as little
fitted for the direct business of legislation as for that of
administration. [...] It would soon be recognized that, in legislation as
well as administration, the only task to which a representative assembly
can possibly be competent is not that of doing the work, but of causing it
to be done; of determining to whom or to what sort of people it shall be
confided, and giving or withholding the national sanction to it when
performed,"[8] Rousseau insists that the lawgiver and the law-approvers
should be discerned.
To sum up, if someone claims that representative democracy in which only a
handful of lawmaker act legislation is not right and all of the citizens
should participate in legislation on the basis of direct democracy, that
direct democracy is certainly not advocated by The Social Contract.[9] Of
course at least that direct democracy can be classified as one type of
republic suggested in The Social Contract. Now we will turn our focus to
the meaning of republic in the following chapter.
4. Rousseau supports any constitutional form of the executive if the
legislative is governed by the general will, which is called a 'republic.'
It is undeniable that Rousseau has private preference to democracy.
Cranston explains Rousseau's personal preference to democracy of Swiss in
his introduction to the translation of The Social Contract by saying:
In other Swiss cantons the rustic culture went together with a form of
primitive democracy which held for Rousseau a peculiar interest. These
cantons were sovereign political societies united in a loose
confederation with their neighbors. They were small enough to have the
whole adult male population meet at intervals to legislate. This was
democracy somewhat on the lines of that of the ancient Greek city-
states, and it was something which survived in Europe only in
Switzerland. Allemanic democracy was at least as old as Tacitus, who
considered it a typically tribal and barbaric institution. It was a form
of government which could only go together with a simple form of
culture, a small state, a face-to-face society where everyone knew his
neighbours, and where all men were more or less equal.[10]
From above-mentioned illustration, we can assume that Rousseau would
develop his preference to democracy based upon his dreaming about rural
democracy in Swiss cantons. However, in his pure academic study, he finds
it hard to explain the relation between the legislative power and the
executive power.
The difficulty is to understand how there can be an act of government
before the government exists, and how the people, which is only
sovereign or subject, can in certain circumstances become prince or
magistrates. Now it is hence once more that the body politic reveals one
of the astonishing properties by which it reconciles operations that
seem to be contradictory. For this operation is accomplished by the
sudden transformation of the sovereignty into democracy in such a way
that without undergoing any visible change, and simply through a new
relation of all to all, the citizens become magistrates and pass from
general acts to particular acts, and from the law to its execution. This
change of relation is not a construction of speculative theory without
example in practice; it happens every day in the English parliament,
[……] It is the advantage peculiar to democratic government that it can
be established in fact by a simple act of the general will."( , 17, 145-
146)
As we can see, the difficulty lies in the "sudden transformation do
sovereignty into democracy." As discussed earlier, Rousseau asserts that
the executive power should be separated from the legislative power.
However, he comes to realize that in a certain moment the legislative power
has to transform into the executive power to practice the laws in private
area. But that is simply impossible in his logic showed in The Social
Contract.
Without a doubt, using words such as "sudden" or "astonishing" shows his
lack of confidence in his own logic development. Rousseau seems to know
that from his own argument he simply cannot properly explain the sudden
transformation of the sovereignty into democracy. But to our surprise, he
then borrows another principle which is incompatible with his argument to
justify one of the astonishing properties of the body politic for
emphasizing the advantage peculiar to democratic government. That is, he
suddenly throws away his abstract logic development and presented the
example of English parliament as evidence to justify his contradictory
argument. But it is obvious that the example of English parliament only
reveals that Rousseau's argument is astonishingly contradictory to the real
life politics.
Moreover, although Rousseau shows his private preference to democracy, he
also reveals the demerits of democracy as discussed earlier. And from the
fact that he does not propose any solution on how to balance the merits and
demerits, we can assume that he himself gave up further researches.
However, above all, Rousseau's private preference to democracy simply does
not in conformity with the main argument in The Social Contract as follows:
Any state which is ruled by law I call a 'republic', whatever the form
of its constitution; for then, and then alone, does the public interest
govern and then alone is the 'public thing' - the res publica – a
reality. All legitimate government is 'republican.' ( , 6, 82)
Rousseau supports republican government, and the constitutional form of
republican government can be either democracy or aristocracy. He says in
the footnote to Chapter 6 of Book of The Social Contract that by
'republican' he understands not only an aristocracy or democracy, but
generally any government directed by the general will, which is law. ( , 6,
82) He also says in Chapter 3 of Book , "Throughout the ages men have
debated the question 'What is the best form of government?', and yet they
have failed to see that each of the possible forms is the best in some
cases and the worst in others." ( , 3, 111)
What Rousseau really wants to say is perhaps that the best form of
government can change as environment varies, but it always has to be
republic. Throughout The Social Contract Rousseau admires the Roman
Republic, not because its executive was democracy, but because the
legislative of the Roman Republic, the Roman Commita, was led by the
general will.
He claims that republican government is the one directed by the general
will, which is law. And right to make law belongs to the legislative.
Again, we can confirm that the form of the executive would be a subsidiary
issue if general will governs the legislative to make law.
The concept of republic is concerned with the legislative, while the
concept of democracy is concerned with the executive. Republic is the state
where the legislative is governed by the general will, while democracy is
the form of the executive where magistrates are more than half the whole
population. We have to bear in mind that even in aristocracy all the
citizens can still participate in the assembly and approve the draft bills
like democracy. Aristocracy is different from democracy only in that the
former has lesser magistrates than the latter. Aristocracy and democracy
are forms of the executive, not those of the legislative.
It cannot be emphasized enough how important this analysis is. It seems
that many debates on the issues of direct and representative democracy are
vague, because they lack the precise application of philosophical concepts.
For instance, by Rousseau's own definition, the United States is neither a
republic nor a democracy. According to him, laws are approved by the
general will of majority in a republic, those of the US certainly not;
magistrates are more than half of the whole population in a democracy,
those of the US definitely not. Any scholar who claims that the US is a
republic or a democracy must have borrowed the concepts from writings other
than those of Rousseau's.
In summary, even if Rousseau sometimes did not maintain logical
consistency in The Social Contract because of his private preference to
democracy, we should not lose our way and hold the essence of his argument.
Although it is true that Rousseau suggests the theoretical form of
democracy, it is not right that The Social Contract supports democracy in
practical. And Rousseau supports a republic regardless of the
constitutional form of the executive in The Social Contract. What really
matters in The Social Contract is not democracy, but republic.
5. Conclusion
In his Politics, Heywood explains the influence caused by Rousseau as
follows: "Rousseau's theories have helped to shape the modern idea of
participatory democracy taken up by New Left thinkers in the 1960s and
1970s. This extols the virtues of a 'participatory society', a society in
which each and every citizen is able to achieve self-development by
participating in the decisions that shape his or her life. This goal can be
achieved only through the promotion of openness, accountability and
decentralization within all the key institutions such as parties, interest
groups and legislative bodies. At the heart of this model is the notion of
'grass-roots democracy': that is, the belief that political power should be
exercised at the lowest level."[11]
It is now reality that New Left thinkers are shaping the modern idea of
participatory democracy following arguments from The Social Contract.
However, as we have discussed, The Social Contract does not support
democracy in spite of its suggesting ideas of democracy.
This study is to lay the foundation for future work of reconstructing
democracy. It is to be hoped that this study will constitute to the
rereading of The Social Contract and also to the giving fresh impetus to
the debate on both democracy and republicanism.
-----------------------
[1] Andrew Heywood, Politics, 3d ed. (Houndmills: Macmillan, 2007) , 79.
[2] The text used for The Social Contract in this paper is Jean-Jacques
Rousseau, The Social Contract, trans. Maurice Cranston (London: Penguin
books, 1968). Whenever The Social Contract is cited in this paper, this
text will be used, with parenthetical reference to book, chapter, and page.
[3] Robert A. Dahl, On democracy (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press,
1998), 17.
[4] Although Rousseau seems to distinguish state from sovereign, he also
treats both the same, saying "The public person thus formed by the union of
all other persons was once called city, and it is now known as the republic
or the body public. In its passive role it is called the state, when it
plays an active role it is the sovereign." (`!, 6, 61- , 6, 61-62) So we
can assume that sometimes Rousseau treats state as sovereign. Fortunately,
this little ambiguity does not do any harm to our discussion.
[5] Suppose that all the citizens participate in making laws in a canton of
Switzerland known for its direct democracy. But the government of that
canton would not constitute the democracy suggested in the Social Contract
if the number of the magistrates is less than half of the whole population.
[6] Law-approver is different from lawmaker or legislator. Strictly
speaking, people are not lawmaker or legislator, but law-approver. We will
discuss it later in this chapter and call the people legislator or lawmaker
for the mean time.
[7] Of course the form of the legislative body is different in that in
direct democracy all the people participate in the assembly, while in
representative democracy only the representative do.
[8] See John Stuart Mill, Considerations on representative government,
(Auckland, NZL: Floating Press, 2009) , 120-123.
[9] And we also proved that Dahl's argument which argues that democracy and
republic actually have the same meaning is not the case with The Social
contract because Rousseau distinguishes democracy from republic with
rigidity.
[10] Maurice Cranston, introduction to The Social Contract, tr. Maurice
Cranston (London: Penguin books, 1968), 19-20.
[11] Heywood, Politics, 79.
